Re: [netconf] restconf collections

[Martin Björklund <[e-mail]>]

Kent Watsen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> > This is not a good proposal, since the result is not a valid XML
> > document.  
> 
> How is this important?

I will be difficult to parse, since you can't just parse it with a
standard XML parser.


> It’s not an HTTP-constraint, right?

No.

> and I
> don’t think it is needed for message-framing either.
> 
> I guess, as you mention below, the media-type is inappropriate (though
> 11.3.1 isn’t as clear as one might hope), so maybe the response is
> okay if only changing the media type?

Sure, from a pure media type pow; but I still think it would be a
mistake to send a concatenation of valid XML documents w/o any
separators (and adding custom separators may work, but note how the
original NETCONF XML encoding tried to do that, but failed...).

> > An XML document has exactly one root element.
> > 
> > Also, the media types used in the examples are misleading.  The
> > example reply doesn't match the media type
> > "application/yang-data+json" (same for xml).
> 
> How isn’t the media-type okay for JSON, for the response in the
> previous message?  It seems valid to me...

You're right, it is valid.  My bad.  I forgot how clever the JSON
encoding of a single list entry was ;-)

> No dispute regarding the XML media-type.  
> 
> 
> > I suggest you define new media types and a "collection" root
> > element; or keep the media types and define "collection" in a YANG
> > module as:
> > 
> >  anydata collection;
> 
> Noted, but first would like to understand why simply changing the
> media-type alone (while keeping the responses in the previous message)
> isn’t sufficient, for both xml and json.
> 
> Each media-type can define its own format so, e.g.,
> “application/yang-data+xml-list" could be used to define a list of XML
> documents, right?
> 
> That said, I acknowledge that having a root-element may aid
> xml-parsers, and thus perhaps worthwhile for that reason...just want
> to ensure we understand the motivations accurately.

Yes this is my concern.


/martin